Shelach L’cha written by Will Spires B’midbar Music copyright 2017The power of the truth, or the terror of a lieThe danger of a thought can lead, an entire nation to charamThe way that we perceive, affects how we believeWe can choose to curse and complain, or bring these thoughts back to captivityRepeat: If you can’t hear His voice, then you’ve hardened your heart, If you can’t hear His voice, then you’ve hardened your heartYou’re in the wilderness and you’re covered up in trial, Are you sick with thoughts of Egypt? Did you forget the Nile? ​Did you forget the locust? Did you forget the day that,you walked upon the ocean floor as YHVH held the waves?Did you forget the manna? Sweet water from the rock? Is it coming back to you?His promised covenant! Take care my precious family, while it’s still called Today,Search if we’ve run aground and in pride shipwrecked our faithLet us return and fix our, our hearts upon Your truth, with my whole heart I seek You,And all I want is You!

Allow me to briefly express my gratitude to Pastor David Jones as much of this songstory is rooted in the Torah Portion teaching that he taught his congregation at Ruach Ministries International, which I want to encourage you to check out online on Facebook, Youtube and Vimeo where you will find a wealth of absolutely fantastic teachings that will bless, encourage and challenge you to grow in your daily walk with Messiah Yeshua. Now, this songstory is loosely based on the Torah parsha Shelach L’cha, which translated roughly means “Send for yourselves” or “Sow for yourselves”. In this portion YHVH allows Moses to send a leader from each of the twelve tribes to spy out the land that He is giving Israel. I’m not entirely persuaded God intended this but I was definitely struck when I learned that the name of the portion can also mean “Sow yourselves, or sow for yourselves”. Why would that be important you might ask? Well, just to say that, it’s important that we are required to take the initiative to seek God. We’ll touch on this again later in this songstory, but YHVH told Israel in Jeremiah “'You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart”. It really goes without saying, but I’ll say it for the sake of clarity. It’s quite difficult to find YHVH when you refuse to hear His word.

Now, in this portion we pick up in the book of B’midbar, which has been renamed in the English as the book of Numbers, chapter 13. If I might take a brief sidebar here and ask, why did this book get renamed Numbers? So much of this book details the account of Israel’s 42 encampments in the wilderness, all the while learning who YHVH is, and at the same time learning how to trust Him while traveling in the wilderness. B’midbar translated in English means, “In the Wilderness” which is where Israel is predominantly throughout the entire book. For anyone unfamiliar with the Hebrew language I simply wanted to take a moment to share that with you to give some context and a little perspective because God knows man, and man (speaking of myself personally) has an underlying affinity to take things out of context when it justifies something that may be less than true.

We’re detailing the travails of Israel and how they learned the hard way that being in a relationship with The LORD means that sometimes our eyes and our circumstances will tell us one thing, when The LORD is clearly telling us something different. This is the walk of faith, and sometimes we feel it incumbent upon ourselves to want to “help GOD”, after He’s already given us the layout. If you have not read it in a quiet setting, may I encourage you to read the following parts of your Bible: B’midbar (Numbers) Chapters 13 through 15; Joshua 2:1-24; and the book of Hebrews chapter 3, verses 7-19. If you’ve already read it recently then continue on, but if not or if it’s been a little while, for your benefit just pause right here. Grab your Bible off the shelf or open a new tab in your browser and go to any popular Bible website and read it before you continue.

So, just to be clear, YHVH had already promised to give them the land right?

Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, "Send out for yourself men so that they may spy out the land of Canaan, which I am going to give to the sons of Israel; you shall send a man from each of their fathers' tribes, everyone a leader among them. -Numbers 13:1-2

And again, Moses recaps in Deuteronomy (Devarim) chapter 1, verses 21-23:'See, the Lord your God has placed the land before you; go up, take possession, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has spoken to you. Do not fear or be dismayed. "Then all of you approached me and said, 'Let us send men before us, that they may search out the land for us, and bring back to us word of the way by which we should go up and the cities which we shall enter.' "The thing pleased me and I took twelve of your men, one man for each tribe”.

God had already promised them the land, and yet, the people persisted. This is what we call a classic case of getting in God’s way. Some have even called it “limiting God”. You may have heard some well-meaning folks say “That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard!”, but read the following:

When Jesus had finished these parables, He departed from there. He came to His hometown and began teaching them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, "Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this man get all these things?" And they took offense at Him. But Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household." And He did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief. --Matthew 13:53-58

Christ wanted to do more miracles in his hometown, and yet He himself was limited in what He could do because of what, say it with me—because of their unbelief. And this is where we find ourselves in crisis isn’t it? Certainly not always. I would vouch to say there are chapters in our lives where some of us prevail and push through in prayer and do magnificently depending on God and do exactly what He desires of us. But I’m not talking about those times. I’m talking about those other times, when we want God to remove the thorn and it looks like He doesn’t. Where was God?

This is what this song is all about, trusting God when all hell is breaking loose and our lives appear to be falling apart. But it’s also a song about reflecting on what our part was, taking ownership of that and confessing it to God and then moving forward in obedience. What we read in this particular account of Israel is tragic, and a little embarrassing. God had already promised the land of Canaan to Israel, but as Moses recounted in Deuteronomy all of Israel was bent on sending leaders from each tribe to spy out the land, its cities and its people. The end result as you’ve read or are already aware is that ten of the 12 men brought back an evil report. They trusted their flesh more than they trusted the word of The LORD, and this is where we find ourselves often. God says dwell on this, but we dwell on that. God says talk about this, but we talk about that. God says forgive and we won’t. God says trust me, and instead we go whoring after our heart. Offensive? See the following:

Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribbon of blue: And it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the LORD, and do them; and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring: That ye may remember, and do all my commandments, and be holy unto your God. I am the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the LORD your God. —Numbers 15:38-41

I got to thinking about this and was quickly reminded of how this has been much of our problem not just historically speaking for the nation of Israel, but for us as believers individually and in our relationships at home and work. Remember the account of Adam and Chava (Eve) in the garden. There was a twisting of God’s truth and Chava chose to pursue what up until that moment had been an alien idea. What was it? “I deserve better than what God has provided me, therefore I can take better care of myself than God can.” That did not end well for Adam or Chava did it? Again we see it with Cain and Abel. Cain and Abel are bringing their offerings to God and Cain’s offering was rejected, whereas Abel’s was accepted. Cain then began to wrestle with some very dangerous ideas. But God, spoke lovingly to him, to urge him to stay the course. What did He tell him?

The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.” —Genesis 4:6-7

Whining, Grumbling and Rebellion

Back to the wilderness with Israel in the book of B’midbar. So, that whole day and night after the ten spies brought back an evil report we read then that “all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night. All the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron; and the whole congregation said to them, "Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! "Why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become plunder; would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?" So they said to one another, "Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt” (Numbers 13:1-4). Oh! Life in Egypt was so much better! We had such an opulent life of luxury there! You know, with the whippings and being beaten daily, being starved half to death, oh and being forced to sacrifice our newborn children into the Nile River by order of Pharaoh (insert sarcasm here). But those were the days! Right? If it were not for the fact that this account was tragically true, this would almost be amusing, but it is deafeningly serious. We repeat history when we engage in like behavior. God, why am I having to endure (insert current trial here)? Things were so much better before—you mean before you chose to rebel against God in your heart, or after? See this is where we are at every single day and God is speaking to you and me right now. He says, I’ve given you victory over (insert current trial here), but this demands that you abandon your pride and surrender to me completely. Do you remember which two spies were permitted to enter the land? That’s right, Joshua and Caleb. But do you remember why? Because God said “None of the men who came up from Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob; for they did not follow Me fully, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua the son of Nun, for they have followed the Lord fully' (Numbers 32:11-12). What does it mean to follow The LORD fully? It means whole heartedly. Do you know where else we find this description of service? Let’s take a look in the book of Jeremiah chapter 29;

“You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. 'I will be found by you,' declares the Lord” -Jeremiah 29:13-14a.

On Mount Sinai our ancestors entered into covenant with YHVH. YHVH extended to them an eternal relationship, one that would furnish for them a new identity, a purpose that would have eternal consequences, and a heritage that would extend to the world for generations to come. But what was one of the conditions of that covenant?

“'Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel" (Exodus 19:5-6). God was upholding His end of the relationship, but Israel was too busy stumbling over their appetites. If you flip back to B’midbar chapters 11 and 12 you’ll discover that they were impatient, greedy, and constantly complaining. Let’s apply a little context here; these people had been under the harshest abuse living out a vaporous existence as forced slave labor treated less than human and had been crying out to God to redeem them within their meager rooves that dotted the land of Goshen back in Egypt. They constantly lived in terror. But now, they were finally free of Pharoah. God had redeemed them with a mighty and strong arm. He had split the mighty waves of the sea of Reeds and they had walked across and over onto dry land on the other side. They had watched Pharoah and all his riders perish as YHVH brought the waters back together, drowning them figuratively in their own greed and pride, and literally under the crashing waves of the sea. God brought them water in the wilderness when there was none. He made His presence known with a cloud that hovered over the tabernacle by day, and a pillar of fire by night. He had provided food when there was none. He had promised to bring them into a land that would be their own, with copper and brass in the hills, with crops they did not plant, and wells that they did not dig. There were so many miracles they witnessed; and yet, they stumbled still in unbelief.

Unbelief is sin. At its core, unbelief is rebellion, and unbelief is making the choice not to trust God and instead put your trust somewhere else. Case in point, instead of trusting God, I’m going to trust my experience, which can be distilled down to myself. Or how about instead of trusting God in this situation I’m going to trust in my fear which is terrorizing me right now, which if you bring that to its lowest common denominator comes back again to self. See, Israel had cried out for redemption from God. They received it. But when time came for them to trust Him and do what He commanded them, they balked miserably, not so fast though, we’re guilty too. Look at social media today as an example. I have lots of friends there and I honestly believe that they all believe they are doing the best they can to serve YHVH. So, what do we do? We learn something, we post it as a meme online and then suddenly our social experience is a scrolling line of scripturally based memes designed to “encourage” us, but with absolutely no “social” interaction, and in the end can actually make us feel less connected with one another and more insecure, inferior and create all kinds of spirits of division within the body.

The point is, we need to be very careful with our words and our thoughts because they can be the life or the death of us. I was speaking last week with a close brother and friend my Pastor, David Jones over Ruach Ministries International, and we speculated over what it might have been like after the Israelites had determined to take the land the following day knowing full well that God had already told them not to go up and try to take the it because He clearly stated He was not with them. We read “then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down, and struck them and beat them down as far as Hormah” - (Numbers 14:45). Now, why is that important? Why did YHVH include the name of the town Israel was beaten back to? Does it have any bearing at all? Actually, it does. If you study that word in Hebrew, Hormah has a root word, which is Charam; and it means to ban, devote, destroy utterly, completely destroy, dedicate for destruction. God has an uncanny knack for bringing pinpoint focus upon our sin when He wants to get our attention doesn’t He? Israel, due to their unbelief had been beaten, defeated pushed back to a city so named “Dedicated for Destruction.” How’s that for getting our attention? The point of all of this of course to bring the realization that when we rebel against God’s word and choose our appetites or emotions instead, which is what Israel did when they listened to the evil report brought back by the ten spies from the promised land, then we essentially dedicate our lives to destruction. Unbelief kept everyone who was 20 years of age and up from crossing over into the Promised Land when it was finally time to go. Caleb and Joshua were the only ones from that generation that made it in, because they served God with their whole heart.

This is why at the beginning of the song I sing, “The power of the truth, or the terror of a lie, the danger of a thought can lead an entire nation to charam. The way that we perceive, affects how we believe, we can choose to curse and complain, or bring these thoughts back to captivity”. Paul talks about this in his second letter to Corinth, chapter ten verses 3 through 5: “For although we do live in the world, we do not wage war in a worldly way; because the weapons we use to wage war are not worldly. On the contrary, they have God’s power for demolishing strongholds. We demolish arguments and every arrogance that raises itself up against the knowledge of God; we take every thought captive and make it obey the Messiah”.

Unbelief hardens our heart and it deceives us from what the truth really is. The truth is, sometimes we fear man more than we fear God. There are times when unfortunately, we seek man’s approval over God. The truth is, sometimes we know that what we want isn’t what God wants for us and we seek what we want anyway. The truth is, we realize that our addiction will kill us, but we refuse to believe we can be delivered out from under it. The truth is, we fear our own honesty will destroy intimacy in relationships when it’s the one thing that allows for real healing to begin. We have become hardened in our heart to God’s truth, which has clearly stated, read closely “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” - (2 Corinthians 3:17).

When we choose not to believe YHVH, there are consequences, period. It hardens our heart, and causes us to become deceived. Suddenly without warning, we have become deaf to His voice, numb to His touch, and blind to His light. This is why the writer of Hebrews said, “Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, "Today if you hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me, as in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tried Me by testing Me, and saw My works for forty years. Therefore I was angry with this generation, and said, 'They always go astray in their heart, and they did not know My ways” (Hebrews 3:7-10). Do we desire to know God and His ways? Do we desire to hear His voice? Do we desire victory in our internal and external daily battles? I want to encourage you that we have God’s truth and if we will learn from our ancestors, we can and will be delivered to that Promised Land as we seek YHVH with our whole heart! Blessings.